


Signs of Happiness

by dirtylittlegreasemonkey



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 16:16:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13907700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirtylittlegreasemonkey/pseuds/dirtylittlegreasemonkey
Summary: Following on from Aaron and Robert's reunion, various people in their lives adjust to them being back together.





	Signs of Happiness

**_Alex_ **

Nina approaches him in the corridor, pushing her phone into the pocket of her uniform. Normally they catch each other in the canteen, bemoaning the latest rota change but the wards have been crammed the last few days and he hasn’t had five minutes since he started back after the suspension.

“Hey!” she says, “You, me, lunchtime. It’s been forever and I want all the juicy details about you and the sexy scrapper.”

Alex’s face falls and Nina quickly backtracks, sucking in air through her teeth.

“Shit, what have I said?”

Alex stuffs his hands into his pocket, giving her an eye roll that turns into a shake of the head. “Nothing,” he says. “But it’s more of an after-work drowning my sorrows kind of a situation.”

“Babe…”

He should’ve expected it really. Could’ve predicted it. Was just naïve enough to think that he’d actually meant something to Aaron and that sharing the same small village with his ex wasn’t a recipe for disaster. How wrong could he have been? It took them – what – thirty minutes after Aaron had finished with him?

He was on Aidan’s sofa two days after the unceremonious dumping at the bar and listening to his mate clunk around the kitchen when he found out. His head thumping like someone had a stereo amp pushed against his skull and there it was, on Facebook of all things. He wasn’t even stalking Aaron’s feed for signs as to why it had ended – it’s not like he didn’t know where things had gone wrong, he didn’t need to collect clues – it popped up right there on his feed, right at the top when he refreshed. Most people with common sense had the settings changed so that they had to approve tagged photos of themselves manually so that your boss didn’t stumble on something horrendous from the night before on your page. But not Aaron Dingle, oh no. He must have had his set to automatic.

That, or he didn’t care and he wanted the world to know.

_Aaron Dingle was tagged in this. Robert Sugden added a photo._

A caption: _It’s a beautiful morning…_ _☼_

Alex could barely look at it. For a second he almost forgot he didn’t get to appreciate this view anymore. Aaron’s half-smiled face pressed into the pillow, trying to escape from the camera. His hair soft and bed-mussed, topless except for the sheet riding across his bare chest. His expression blissful.

More blissful than he’d seen before. That was what was different about it. He tossed the phone to the end of the sofa, raking his hands through his hair. How could he have been so stupid?

He ends up in the grotty pub down the road from the hospital with Nina after work, glumly sliding his finger down the condensation on his beer.

“Tacky, much?” Nina says, raising her eyebrows after he’s told the whole Facebook story. “I mean, _who_ does that?”

“Oh that wasn’t it,” Alex says. “I had a whole play by play of their day together thanks to Robert tagging every single status. Which there were about five hundred.”

“Ugh. Way to rub it in.”

“That’s his style,” Alex says knowing that every last update was aimed at him. It was the modern day equivalent of a cat pissing on its lawn. “’Oh look, here’s the breakfast I made for Aaron…oh look we’re finally out of bed and it’s twelve thirty, winky-face emoji…’”

“Dick.”

“You’ve no idea,” Alex says. “I’m trying not to let it get to me, you know? But we’ve been split up five minutes and…”

Nina leans in, touching Alex’s forearm sympathetically.

“Aaron’s already put his wedding ring back on. It’s all over the photos.”

“The shitbag,” Nina says, then reacting immediately to the fall of Alex’s head. “Oh babe, don’t take it to heart. I mean, it’s not you, is it? He clearly never got over him.”

“I should have run a mile at Christmas,” Alex says, shuddering at the memory of Christmas Eve in the pub. The two of them holding this conversation, sad secret smiles about last year’s tacky jumpers and Robert’s voice cracking. “Robert going on and on about how they were meant to be together. So I guess I was just the pathetic rebound after all.”

“Rebound maybe, but pathetic, no way,” Nina says. “He should’ve stayed well clear of dating if he still wasn’t over his bloke. But, a bit of advice? Maybe just give the whole, ‘recently separated, lives in the same street as their dramatic ex’ blokes a miss next time, yeah?”

Alex’s whole body slumps with a sigh. He looks down at his phone, catching his mournful expression in its reflection. He thinks of the photo posted today, a selfie of the two of them at home. Taken by Robert, of course, except Aaron had commented on this one: _Soft x_.

“And for the love of god,” Nina says, snapping him out of his trance. “Defriend him on Facebook.”

* * *

 

**_Liv_ **

It’s weird with him around again. Even if it’s good weird.

The first long afternoon when it’s just the two of them – when Aaron’s driven to Bradford on a job – it’s especially weird. She doesn’t like it. It feels like he’s edging around her slowly, watching her for clues that he isn’t fucking up.

“Can you just be normal?” Liv says to him, looking up from the reading she was supposed to be doing for English.

“What do you mean?”

He’s already apologised three times for nothing. He’s turned off the TV, moved his laptop from the table and asked her several hundred times if she needs anything or wants a snack.

“It’s freaking me out. All this extra nice stuff.”

“I just…” he lifts up his hands and let them fall again, sighing. “Sorry.”

“There you go again. Apologising.” She pushes out from the table to stand nearer to him, even though he towers over her. “Can’t you just be Robert again?”

“And what does that entail?”

“Generally being a bit less ‘ _oh would you mind awfully’_ and a bit more like the prat we’ve come to know and…tolerate.”

“I’m trying to get used to having my family back, Liv.”

“Yeah and so are we. But for some reason my brother loves _Robert_ , not this alien you’re pretending to be.”

Robert gives her a weak smile and rests his mug down on the side. “I thought you might start liking me more if I was a bit more…”

“What?”

She sees him physically cringe, shudder.

“Like Alex.”

Liv laughs. “You? Like Alex! Give me a break!”

“What? You seemed to think he was the best thing since sliced bread!”

“He wasn’t a dickhead that cheated on Aaron for one,” she says, immediately regretting it when she sees Robert’s head fall.

“I know.”

“But you can’t be all Mr Nice Guy,” she says. “It’s not you. And Aaron didn’t love Alex. He loves you.”

“But you’d rather he was here. Instead of me.”

“Doesn’t matter what I think,” she says.

“It does to me.”

Liv hunches her shoulders forward, avoiding his gaze. Sometimes he’s just like Aaron, gets under her skin. Makes her feel like he really cares. Uses the word ‘family’ like it’s warm and forever, not guaranteed to let you down. She wants to trust him again, let him in. Have a laugh with him, wind up Aaron with him, gang up on him without malice with Aaron’s help. She just wants things to go back to normal. Or whatever normal was, whatever it was starting to feel like.

She sits at the table, picking up a pen and scratching it on the back cover of an exercise book to distract herself.

“I am glad you’re here,” she says. “I always wanted you to be with us. I just don’t want it to go wrong again.”

“Neither do I,” he says, taking the seat opposite her. “I’m scared just like you. And not because I think it will go wrong, but because you’re both so important to me. I can’t bear to lose that again.”

She looks up at him, sucking her mouth to one side, her eyes feeling suspiciously watery.

“And I know I’m not Alex. I wasn’t here. But I’m here now. For good. Whenever you need me. If you need someone to kill Gabby or…”

This raises a smile in her.

“Bet he didn’t offer that, did he?”

“You say it like it’s something to be proud of. Death threats for teenagers.”

“A nice cosy chat then?” He grins.

“Even Aaron wouldn’t go that far,” Liv says and gives him an appreciative nod when the silence drifts in again.

Robert pauses, looking like he wants to say something but not knowing if he should. He eyes over her homework for a minute, grimacing at the essay questions she’s been set before he takes a breath, ready to say what she imagines he’s been holding back on.

“And about the other stuff…the er…your feelings and growing up and…”

“You’re not very good at this.”

“No, I know,” he says, sheepishly. “But you know you can talk to us. Even if we make a terrible job of it.”

“Thanks.”

They sit there in their own private world for a moment. Not uncomfortable. Not as weird. She hopes he’ll get up, carry on like normal. Watch a boring film or the news and leave her to it. Or start making dinner. Or call Aaron and pester him about coming home and be sickeningly romantic at the end of the call.

She notices more kitchen equipment lined up on the work surfaces, more than she’s seen in months. Rob’s NutriBullet in a pride of place. He catches her staring intently at it.

“Milkshake?” he says. No creeping, no niceties. Just Robert.

Like the old days. One of his infamous creations.

“Milkshake,” she says.

 

* * *

 

 

**_Joe_ **

“So what’s the deal with Robert?”

Jimmy’s signed the contract. It was as easy as that. Too easy almost. And Joe suggested they toast it, lead him into the kitchen with the suggestion of a drink. He nodded in all the right places and squeezed out sounds of concern when Jimmy’s phone bleeped four times over with messages from Nicola and Robert.

“The deal?” Jimmy asks. Oh Jimmy, gullible Jimmy. Joe had to keep stopping himself from laughing at the man’s gurning enthusiasm for everything. He could probably get Jimmy to clean out the toilets if he asked nicely enough.

Joe readjusts himself into a more comfortable position on the kitchen stool, trying to figure out how best to dig for dirt on Robert. Good businessmen should always be suspicious and alert of other similarly wealthy men in the area.

Joe had been on his way to the café earlier, impatient that Graham was taking so long to pick up his flat white, when he saw Robert Sugden. He was stood at the end of the driveway to Mill Cottage in the same clothes as yesterday, leaning in to kiss one of the distant Dingle relatives on the mouth. One of the _male_ Dingles. That had been something of a surprise. It was a small village but he didn’t quite have tabs on who was fucking who.

He hadn’t done that much digging about Robert before now. He’d skirted his radar. He hadn’t paid him much attention except for the mad lady and the baby incident from weeks ago. One minute he was pushing a pram around and the next, smiling into kisses with this lad.

The Dingle – he didn’t know much about him either. Except that he was one of them and worked at the scrapyard and that his name began with an A. He had been a stubborn little bitch about taking the golf course pay-out.

But what was the situation between them? How had it even started? He couldn’t get his head round it. Jimmy was the best option he had to find out.

“He’s got a baby and he’s with….” Joe says, rolling his hand over in the hopes Jimmy would fill in the gaps.

“Aaron,” Jimmy says, helpfully finishing sentences for him. “Another Dingle. Not sure where he fits into the big family tree, but he’s Chas’s son. You know, the one that works at the pub. Landlady. The one that isn’t Charity.”

“Yes, I managed to work that one out,” Joe says, keeping his sarcasm on the right side of kind. Teeth tight.

“But really I can’t keep up with those two. On, off, off, on. I never used to know what I was going to get when I turned up at the scrapyard. They’d either be not talking or all…goey.”

“I never knew Robert was…”

“Bisexual, yes. I think it came as a shock to most people actually, not least of all Nicola because funnily enough she-“ Jimmy’s eyes widen and he stutters, backtracking over something he shouldn’t have said but something Joe knows won’t be interested enough to pick up on. Jimmy takes a glug of champagne to mask it, before continuing. “B-but probably it was his wife that was most surprised. Dead now though so I’m not sure she cares all that much.”

Joe raises his eyebrows.

“Not dead because of that. No, she was the woman that lived here before you. Car crash. Terrible accident by all accounts. But you see, she was married to Robert while he was playing away from home.”

“With Aaron.”

“With Aaron, exactly.”

“And now what? They’re on? Off?”

“Married. Sort of. Kind of. I think. Well, they were. And then they weren’t. And now…now…”

“They looked pretty cosy earlier.”

“I think it’s a recent development,” Jimmy says. “Robert spent most of last year licking his wounds, skulking round the office. That’s why he’s taking some time off work to sort out everything at home.”

“Juggling the husband, the ex, the baby and the business, you mean?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“Seems pretty unfair on you to dump it all on your door,” Joe says. “And you’ve got the extra pressure from me. Can’t be easy.”

“I’ll manage!” he says, almost cheerfully. “Got to keep busy. It’s good to keep busy.”

“Good man,” Joe says. “And by the sounds of it, Robert knows how to mess people about. I hope he doesn’t plan on doing that to you, Jimmy.”

“Robert’s all right, really. He should be now anyway. Now that he’s got Aaron back. Less time to order me about.”

Joe smiles tightly, as if it’s an agreement, an understanding. Less time for Robert Sugden to interfere.

Perfect.

 

* * *

 

****

**_Gerry_ **

It’s on the third breakfast that they’d spent together, the four of them, that Gerry starts compiling a list of questions in his head. He’d been so distracted by each one that came to him that his cereal spoon had hovered mid-air, pooling milk onto the kitchen table. Robert had banned him – and _him_ specifically – from eating on the sofa, having found a crust of cornflakes on one of the cushions.

“Have you any idea how much those cushions cost?” he’d said, tackling it with a damp sponge and talking to Gerry like he was under five. Gerry had just shrugged. How was he meant to know?

Question number one is obvious. He’s watched Robert sliding around Aaron at the sink. It looks like he’s attempting to help him wash up but really he’s slipping his fingertips under the hem of Aaron’s t-shirt (the two of them seemed to get dressed later and later as the days went on) and running his nose along the nape of Aaron’s neck until he’s shrugged away. Robert tickles him a lot. A lot. And Aaron seems to like it. A lot.

And although they are flirtatious and Robert’s voice has that dirty purr to it (Gerry wants tips) he still has that first question riding around in his head: Is it really worth giving up tits for cock? Or cock for tits?

He doesn’t get it.

Question two comes immediately after that, after Gerry watches Robert whisper something into Aaron’s ear, get pushed away, whipped with a dish towel.

“Are you?” Robert says, voice swallowed up by a low bellied chuckle. Gerry doesn’t know what the first part of the question was. Probably doesn’t want to know.

“Get…upstairs,” Aaron says, a cross between a warning and an exasperated threat.

Question two: Do you use the same chat up lines on men and women?

Question three: How different is your taste in men and women?

…Except he scratches question three off the list. He can’t like his women gruff and stubbly and his men all fit and _well_ fit, so that one was obvious.

His forth question comes late in the evening after he’s taken Tip back to Jai and he’s been down the pub with Lachlan and Belle. The lights are all off when he gets in so he just assumes everyone’s in bed. He lets himself in dead quiet like. Too quiet.

Lads used to send round gay porn at school as a joke. Sent in emails with the subject “Saw your dad in this video.” Gerry’s never actually seen it properly. Admittedly he’s sort of morbidly curious like anyone is about sex.

They’re on the sofa, Aaron’s head in Robert’s lap. Robert’s eyes closed, jaw tilted slightly back, fingers in Aaron’s hair.

And that’s all Gerry sees before raising his arm to block it out and backing way out of the door. He escapes to hang out in the park outside the church for a bit. But question number four does crop up then and there.

Question four: Is it true men give better head?

Well, he’s always wondered.

Gerry decides that they’re alright really, the two of them. They’d have to be to live with _and_ work with. Robert’s not as mental and as much of a twat as the Whites made out and Aaron’s not half as quiet and miserable with Robert moved back in. The scrapyard is a lot more fun. They even let him skive off a bit, send him on an extra long lunch.

“I know what the pair of you are up to!” Gerry says, waggling his finger and then tapping it against his nose.

“Getting five minutes peace?” Robert says, hand on forehead.

Gerry looks between them and makes a mental note of question five: Do you role play big bad boss and filthy scrapper?

“Do one, Gerry,” Aaron says.

“Understood,” Gerry says, saluting at them both and marching out the door of the portacabin. A long lunch gave him plenty of time to finish his list and to work out when best to ask those key questions before they spilled out of him at the wrong time and Robert refused to answer.

****

* * *

 

 

**_Graham_ **

Joe’s Montblanc hits him from across the room. That’s the definition of idiocy, isn’t it? Spending four hundred pounds on a ballpoint pen.

“What’s with the closed laptop lid?” he asks, strolling elbows wide as he unbuttons his suit jacket. Graham looks up, giving him that once-over glance of disinterest and clasps his hands around the laptop catch. Graham hears him sit down in one of the office chairs and give it a half-swivel.

“It’s happening again.”

Joe ruffles with a small laugh. Graham can’t work out what amuses Joe more, Robert’s work shy nature, or how brazen the pair of them are in that grubby little cabin. It’s only Egyptian cotton and high-rise offices for Joe, of course.

“What are we talking, PG or Pornhub?”

“It never stays PG for very long,” Graham says, grimacing at the tail end of the last encounter he saw yesterday before he was quick enough to get the lid down. He’s never seen a couple transform from teasingly flirty to intense and clothes-tearing quite like this before. One minute they’re laughing over some stupid inside joke, Robert’s husband – the Dingle – all cheeks and wide smiles and the next minute, Robert has him by the waist, mouth on him and trousers wormed open. Robert had pushed Aaron over the desk and Graham felt everything from his throat upwards blush.

If they could get them shut down for health and safety reasons, Joe would have conquered this weeks back. It’s a filth pit.

“You could at least unmute it. How will you know when it’s over? You might miss something.”

Graham turns his head to the side. Joe can be unbearably immature sometimes. “The only thing I’m missing right now is learning how Robert Sugden likes his blow jobs. But if you want to listen in then be my guest.”

“Well, if all else fails, there’s a blackmail plot in there somewhere, surely?”

Graham watches Joe lean back, bounce a little in the chair, sliding his hands over his desk, his empire.

“You’re suggesting a sex tape?” Graham says the words like they’re foreign. They feel mucky on his tongue.

Joe shrugs. “There’s got to be something we can use. Some weird kink. Something to drive the customers away.”

“Do you think anyone’s really going to care about some low-rent haulage owner’s sex life?”

“It’s dirt, isn’t it? Everyone loves a bit of dirt.”

“You haven’t had the pleasure of seeing it for yourself,” Graham says, almost tempted to lift the lid and show Joe. Where would they be up to now? Round two? Three? That smug-sweaty part where Robert pulls Aaron into his arms and presses shaky kisses on his forehead? The bit where they swap places and Aaron sits in Robert’s chair and extracts himself from his hi-vis. Or that sickeningly cutesy part where Robert smacks his backside and tells him to get back to work and then sticks out his mouth for a parting kiss. “They spend half their time talking about how much they love each other. No one wants to watch that.”

“In between all the fucking around then! You must have got something out of it this week!” Joe’s on his feet now, exasperated, hands in the air, brows thickly shadowing his eyes.

“I can tell you what they’re cooking for dinner, how much Robert loves the fit of Aaron’s t-shirt and how they plan on getting rid of the household to have an _early night_ , but as for actual information, this is a complete waste of time.”

Graham stands, opening the lid of the laptop as he does and flicking the volume on full. It’s tinny through those speakers but the sound is unmistakable.

“All yours,” Graham says, walking towards the door and leaving behind the sounds of round two, of Robert Sugden unashamedly bleating. This is one way of making Joe learn that there’s nothing that could embarrass a man that fornicates so loudly with his husband in their place of work.

 

* * *

 

 

**_Chas_ **

She’d invited them over for tea partly as a way to distract herself from the week’s pre-occupation with the abortion and partly to show Aaron she was trying.

But the reality is, she doesn’t need to keep tabs on Aaron to know he’s happy. Happier. The happiest she’s seen him in a long time. He pops into the pub early for a pint, an hour before they’re due over for dinner. She’d invited Liv too, but her and Jacob had sloped off to the pictures after school.

“No Robert?” Chas says when Aaron sits up at the bar. She’s already pouring him a pint before he’s asked. She can’t help the air of suspicion that slips into her tone. He’s slippery; he brings it out in her.

“He’s on his way. Jimmy messed up with one of the clients and he’s got to sort it.”

“Charm offensive then, is it?” Chas says, dryly.

“You don’t have to say it like that.”

“Sorry,” she says. “Old habits die hard and all that.”

“I know he’s not your first choice-”

“Or fifth, sixth, seven…hundredth-”

“But he’s my first choice. Alright?” He takes the pint from her. “Are you gonna keep having a go, or shall I go and sit in the corner?”

“Stay where you are, where I can see you,” she says.

“You know he’s bricking this meal tonight so can you just ease off a bit?”

“Why would he be bricking it? He has his tea in here all the time.” She holds a little wry smile in, but she’s sure her eyes are revealing it.

Aaron looks up from his phone and rolls his eyes. “Have you met you?”

“I’m looking out for my boy and if that means tearing Robert Sugden a new-”

Aaron lifts off the stool, making a motion as if to leave, but Chas stops him.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’ll try and keep it in. I’ll practise.” Chas adopts a new voice, layered in sugar. “ _Oh hi Robert, take a seat. Can I get you anything? How’s life?!_ ”

“I love him.”

“I know.”

“And he loves me.”

“Debatable.”

“We want this and you know, I’m sick of other people interfering. Telling me how I should and shouldn’t feel. Pushing me.”

“That’s not what I’m trying to do,” Chas says.

“No? And Alex? That wasn’t you pushing me to move on?”

“Because I just wanted what was best for you. And Alex, Alex was such a nice guy. He was good for you.”

“He didn’t make me happy.”

Chas sees that comment for what it is. A shut down. Maybe he she knew all along, could see the difference in him. The distance, the hollowness of his smiles. She’d lived with Aaron and Robert for months and seen the way he’d lifted her son from the darkest period of his life. He wasn’t perfect and there were plenty of times she’d hated him. But no one had supported Aaron through hell like he had. If Aaron could forgive him then in time so could she.

When Robert arrives thirty minutes later, sliding a hand over Aaron’s shoulders and wearing a long evening’s worth of stress on his face, she’s already got him a drink waiting. He hands her a white cake box over the bar, strawberry cheesecake inside.

“Not one of Vic’s,” he says. “I did a quick detour to Robblesfield.”

Her favourite dessert, her favourite bakery. Someone’s obviously out to impress the mother in law.

It feels odd thinking of herself as his mother in law again, but it’s easier than she expected to slide back into the role.

“Is this a comment on my cooking?” she says. A test.

Aaron gives a quick shake of the head, telling him to ignore her.

“She hasn’t cooked,” Aaron says. “She’s ordered from that Thai place.”

“Really? Great. I love it there.”

Aaron smiles, ducking behind his hand.

“Oh, do you? Lucky guess then,” she says, giving a knowing look to Aaron and excusing herself to stick the cheesecake in the fridge. She’s not that fussed on Thai. She just remembered. Robert flaming Sugden and his peanut sauce. Yes, she’d wanted to say, we all bloody remember. It was the best peanut sauce you’ve ever tasted. How could we forget?

When she returns out front, she sees it for herself. Aaron’s happiness. The loving looks that pass between them, the casual way Robert touches his hand, his arm, his waist. The private conversations and the jokes that only they know the punchlines too. She can’t deny that. She can’t even be distrustful or envious. How could she? There are bigger things to worry about. But her son’s happiness? Robert has that covered.


End file.
